Culture Trek

Archive for the ‘Kenya’ Category

Genital Mutilation a Weapon in Kenya

By Elizabeth A. Kennedy and John Heilprin

In the violence that has followed Kenya’s disputed presidential election, a notorious gang has been mutilating the genitals of both men and women in the name of circumcision, inflicting a brutal punishment on members of a rival tribe that does not traditionally circumcise.

I have no point of reference to comprehend this. My head and heart have shut down in response.

Finally, mainstream media takes the hint and publishes some sense! (Of course it’s not American mainstream media. Get real. We have states that still haven’t apologized for slavery.)

If you read anything today, let it be this.

The Violence in Kenya May Be Awful, but It Is Not Senseless ‘Savagery’
by Madeleine Bunting
Monday January 14, 2008
The Guardian

I feel much trepidation this week for Kenya. Former UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, with Graca Machel, the wife of Nelson Mandela, and the former Tanzanian president, Benjamin Mkapa arrive Tuesday to mediate between President Kibaki and his opposition, Raila Odinga, over the contested election, but it will likely do little good.

According to the article “Kenyan Minister Spurns Annan Intervention” by Matthew Weaver, Haroon Siddique and agencies at the Guardian Unlimited (14 Jan 2008), the President’s cabinet says there is nothing to discuss:

“If Kofi Annan is coming, he’s not coming at our invitation,” Michuki told Reuters. “As far as we are concerned, we won an election we don’t have a problem to be solved here.”

John Michuki was named as president Mwai Kibaki’s road and works minister last week, when Kibaki enraged the opposition by appointing half his cabinet as peace talks were due to begin.

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“KENYA IS MINE” is the latest motto for Kevin Sudi. Kevin first introduced himself to me after I had posted to the Facebook Village Volunteers’ group about my pending trip to Kenya. He has been instrumental in working with the Common Ground Program and as part of Village Volunteers. He works at a local level:

mainly with widows, teaching them organic farming, HIV/AIDS awareness and positive living, micro finance, entrepreneurship, nature conservation, and we also have a primary school catering majorly for orphans and other vulnerable children.

It is because of our communication that I chose to join forces with the Common Ground Program.

I recently wrote asking where Kevin was, what has happened to Common Ground, and what he thought might come next. My guess is that I was just one of many who had bombarded him with these questions. His reply was an informal mass email written with anger, disallusionment and, most importantly, a passionate sense of national pride and determination:

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I just read two compelling articles over at Spiked in which Western media is being taken to task for failing to report honestly and without stereotypical bias.?

In “Kenya is not the new Rwanda: Why Western observers see every political conflict in Africa as an inexplicable outburst of violence and a harbinger of ‘holocaust’” (Tuesday, 8 January 2008), Frank Furedi. Professor of Sociology at University of Kent, critiques the Western disinformation that plagues Kenyan news coverage. Tracing the underlying historical tensions of the region, Furedi challanges Western cowboy journalism that shoots from the hip:

Through today?’s promiscuous use of the term “genocide”, conflicts become transformed into morality plays about human destruction, and tend to be seen as being both incomprehensible and inevitable. Western reporters see only a sudden, inexplicable outburst of violence – a kind of murderous descent into hell – and overlook the structural causes of crises in the Third World…

…it is precisely because the stakes are so high that the last thing Kenya needs is for its problems to be transformed into a Western fantasy about “another Rwanda”. Kenya was not a beacon of democracy or a model of economic stability before the December elections. And nor is it the dramatic setting for a Rwanda-to-be after the elections. All that has happened is that one group of corrupt politicians overplayed its hand, got a little bit too greedy, and forced its opponents to react on the streets.

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During this time of crisis, Kenyans have formed complex information networks, connecting and self reporting while traditional media access has been obstructed by the Kenyan government. Success has been notable but a core group of individuals have implemented something more. They are documenting and verifying the post-election violence from the ground up.

The following is a repost from Ory at Kenyan Pundit who asks that everyone please circulate this widely to help Kenyans bear witness to unreported violence. (Ushadidi means “witness” in Swahili.)

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Linda Szeto has been invited to write a three part series on the situation in Kenya at Eugene Cho’s blog, Beauty and Depravity.

• The first installment was posted today, 2008 January 10. It’s a well researched, up-to-date, summary of Kenyan events as reported in the media world-wide.
• Tomorrow promises to present a compilation of Kenyan reactions from Linda’s friends and from various Kenyan blogs.
• The last will feature an account of the emotional and political struggles of Linda’s friend and Village Volunteer host, Emmanuel Leina Tasur.

I look forward to reading on with great anticipation.

I have been spending some significant time reading the Diary of a Mad Kenyan Woman, asking myself some hard questions posed by its author, Wambui Mwangi. In the chilling post “I was near to die… I was dead,” this sentiment (among many) struck a chord with me:

I was watching CNN as opposed to Kenyan television channels because I wanted to see what the world was saying about us. The world is saying that Kenyans, who had been on the brink of one of the most astonishing democratic transitions witnessed in Africa, degenerated, very conveniently for the West’s stereotypes, to a “business as usual: chaos and anarchy right on schedule” version of the African story. These broadcasts are brimming with just barely-suppressed glee at being able to say that tribal violence is tearing the East African nation of Kenya apart, long regarded as an exemplary bastion of stability in the region. We have confirmed some cherished stereotypes and validated many racists worldwide.

For me too, a born and bred American, this media matter has been painfully obvious. I’m once again trapped within a moment in which I am embarrassed for my country’s myopic comprehension and ashamed of the national and cultural baggage that can weigh upon me like a sack of boulders. I admit that I am not always fully aware of the American ideology that forms my thoughts and, with a growing awareness, I feel as though my identity has been violated by stereotypical ideas never inherently mapped within my DNA. Still, I try to be conscious of the cultural confines of a perceived American superiority. It is a constant effort to combat my subconscious with a sense of humility and an obsessive focus on education, both scholastic and via analysis of my experience. In times of plain living is when the snake slithers up from the shadows and bites me in the ass, but today – today I am painfully aware.

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Kenya Red Cross personnel are doing all they can to tend to injured Kenyans, carry out the dead, and feed the displaced. Issuing an appeal for assistance in order to?provide for the projected 500,000 people over the course of one month, they require Ksh 957,127,906 ($15.4 million US).

If you can, please
DONATE GENEROUSLY.

The following video footage is provided courtesy of Kenya Red Cross:

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The BBC continues to surpass US humanitarian coverage of Kenya by addressing the physical and emotional needs of those navigating their country’s sudden outbreak of violence. As of today, more than 600 have been burned alive, shot and butchered and American media continues to focus on the politics, economics, and violence. But an estimated 250,000 living men, women and children are displaced, frightened, mourning, wounded and hungry with no home to return to. These are stories of the people.

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